BJS response to OMB passback

1. We see implicitly that the following two items might usefully be evaluated but wonder about explicit evaluation plans.  Related, on the second bullet, is there a chance that the FBI might be interested in these results to facilitate its UCR program reporting?

• The degree to which the topic supplements in the 2012 LEMAS---and others that may be added---might be rotated in or out of possibly more frequent LEMAS administrations, as suggested in A6; and

We have added text to A6 describing a related BJS project (BJS-ARC), which will explicitly evaluate future LEMAS supplements and sampling issues.

• The degree to which experience with this first “emphasize Web response” version of LEMAS might shape strategies to more completely push Internet response or completely supplant paper response in later administrations of the survey.

We have included text in the last paragraph of the overview that describes BJS’ intention to learn from this LEMAS and encourage greater online data collection for future surveys. We will share our findings with staff at the FBI if they feel it will benefit the UCR program.

2. Though the exposition in the package is generally quite strong, the middle paragraph of Part A, p. 2 (“In addition, in the new design…”) is one weak spot. Who “raised concerns” about these aspects of the specific LEMAS question structures? The phrasing “many topics were addressed with a single survey item” is overly vague---are they difficult concepts that are better broken into smaller questions?

We have added text in the overview section (6^th paragraph) to clarify this paragraph.

3. Please make some minor editorial fixes at the top of p. 6, Part A: “particulate” should be “participate”, “Reporting” is missing from the spelling-out of the “FBI’s Uniform Crime Program”, and “racial and sexual composition” would read better as just “demographic composition.”

We made the OMB recommended changes.

4. Part B, p. 2: “Should the respondent opt for a non-web-based alternative, a paper or an electronic version of the instrument with a return envelope mailer will be provided.”---How do you mail an electronic version of the instrument? Does this mean that you envision a fillable PDF or some other form that could be downloaded?

This was an error missed during the editing process. The text has been updated to reflect respondents will be mailed a paper survey.

5. In the draft questionnaire, most of the skip patterns are clearly indicated with the dotted boxes; might the arrow-and-dashed-box format work better in Question B3, rather than as a post-question instruction?

Please see the updated questionnaire reflecting the recommended change.

6. The underlining on “an estimate” in Question D2 (total operating budget) and G5 (number of vehicle pursuits), and elsewhere, suggests that this might be a case where the interactive/Web-based questionnaire might include help text to explain what BJS means. What is that help text? [On the print version, it’s tough to tell whether “the figure above is an estimate” is a good/bad or desirable/undesirable thing.]

We underlined words for emphasis only, not to reflect field specific terminology. It does not indicate respondents can access help text. Please see the attached screenshots of the online LEMAS survey that indicates how respondents will be able to access help and terminology. We removed the underlines to maintain greater consistency with other questions having similar response options. The text, “the figure above is an estimate” is to be checked by the respondent if they can only provide an estimated value rather than the actual value. BJS has successfully used the “estimate check box” in past versions of the LEMAS.